Board agrees to swap land with district

A Fremont department head is leading the way for a trade.

At their regular meeting Tuesday night, members of the Fremont Parks and Recreation Board agreed with department director John Schmitz to swap nearly 10 acres of land with Fremont Public Schools around Fremont Middle School on the east side of the city.

Currently, the school district owns land between Military Avenue and Fremont Middle School just west of Johnson Lake. The city owns land south of Fremont Middle School along Johnson Road.

Fremont Public Schools superintendent Steve Sexton is seeking the trade to eventually build a new school building dedicated to fifth- and sixth-grade students on the lot south of the Middle School.

Sexton said the new school building is needed.

“The facilities we have now are snug,” he said. “This building would not be part of the middle school.”

The concept is that all fifth- and sixth-grade students would attend the new school, pulling sixth-grade students from the middle school and fifth-grade students from the district’s elementary schools. Those schools would then be able to spread out students to allow for future growth.

Sexton said school district voters will decide on a bond issue in a special election in April. It would then take about two years before the school building could be completed.

The recommendation for the land trade will go to the Fremont City Council for final approval.

Also, Schmitz told parks board members about two new positions being created: Building maintenance supervisor and events coordinator.

The building maintenance supervisor will oversee maintaining of the city’s pools and the city’s buildings, Schmitz said.

“The idea is to be proactive rather than reacting when something breaks down,” he said. “It costs the city a tremendous amount of money when things aren’t maintained. This position may eventually be taken out of parks and recreation and placed under somewhere else like public works.”

An events coordinator would be a collaborative position between the city, John C. Fremont Days, Fremont Family YMCA, Midland Lutheran College and Fremont Area Chamber of Commerce, Schmitz said. Each entity would have a representative on a special board that would oversee the position. The Parks and Recreation Board also would be represented on the special board.

A proposal for the position shows that each entity would also contribute to funding it.

“The idea is to bring together everything going on within the city,” he said. “What can we do more for the community itself.”

Someone hired for the position would not, however, take over events like John C. Fremont Days and the recent A Day Out With Thomas.

“If we have an event going on at Christensen Field, how do we let them know if there is hockey going on at the ice arena?” Schmitz said. “The largest part of the this position will be marketing.”